Uninspired

Daily Meditation 47–9/19/2023

Today is a rare day for me.

I did not have an “epiphany” moment that grabbed me and said “Oooh! Write about this!”

Yet, here I am, writing.

So, we are going a bit “meta,” to talk about just showing up and doing the thing.

If there is something you need to do, you better just “do the thing.”

Fitness.
Diet.
Getting steps in.
Saving money.
Building relationships.
Writing.
Learning to code.
Becoming a better chess player…

Maybe you’re feeling uninspired, lazy, a dash of imposter syndrome, or just good ol’ nervous…

Show up.
Do it.
Do something.

Fitness trainers often will do things like encourage new clients to at least walk around the block when they’re feeling unmotivated.

You cannot wait for motivation and inspiration to come to you.
You must generate your own motivation.
You must generate your own inspiration.
And a lot of that comes from creating MOMENTUM.

Having trouble writing?
Just sit and do 30 seconds, streams-of-thought.
Tomorrow? do 45 seconds. Then 60. And so on.

Having trouble going to the gym?
Just drive there day one, touch the door, then go home.
Day two, go inside and do one set of one exercise.
Day three, stay for 5 minutes.
Then 6 minutes. Then 7.

Don’t worry about something as unicorn-rare as “inspiration.”

Dalí and Picasso — as their incredible wealth of works will demonstrate — certainly didn’t have the option to wait on inspiration. They just did the thing.

What thing are you struggling to get going?

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These are distillations from my coming book “YouDaimonia: the Ancient Philosophy of Human Flourishing.”